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Topic: British Tanks? What British Tanks? (Read 22608 times)

GREAT BRITAIN you say? Well, many people had asked us why we don’t have any British vehicles yet! The fact is we don’t know where to start... we had considered a few, especially the Churchill, but the tank is just too big and had too many variants to research. We had also looked into others too - desert war, early war, mid and late war? What are your thoughts?

PS: Mind you all... this is not going to happen overnight! We still have a few more vehicles on the queue and in the works! So you still have to wait!!

The following is an edited transcript of the discussion we had on Facebook before the forum is active! You can continue with the discussion here...Dominic Payne: Also an Archer would be awesome as no one produces one yet (as far as I know).

Dominic Payne: I think a Mk2 Valentine would be great you could do the 2pdr, 6pdr and the 75mm variants. Although I would have to buy 2, one for my Russian army and one for my planned 8th army.

Thierry Joly: Churchill MKVII and Grant too

Thierry Joly: Matilda, Cromwell and Crusader will be a good choice.

Melvin Brookman: Cromwell please!

Rubicon Models: Cromwell is easy to do, but someone else is already doing a plastic...

Michael Bliss: True Rubicon, but so companies are going to go in to the plastic type more and more, just keep doing what you’re doing and regardless of other companies you will get your ‘own’ customer following and they will buy, I know I will and I was doing 15mm!!

Thomas Hoellering: I really-really think that you ought to have started with Pre-War tanks first. Then produce tanks on the order that they appeared on the battlefields. As the war progressed, so did tank design. And as you design larger and larger tanks, you too gain design experience. And new and old players can follow your design path from the 1930’s to the 1950’s.

Michael Bliss: still would like a Churchill sometime so do hope you reconsider, I think it would sell well, Id have a slack handful or what J. R. Tranter said.

Rubicon Models: The Churchill is definitely on our to-do list. We just need to sort out the various variants and decided on a production plan. For each vehicle, we had to go through a lot of research and photo references, plus need to fit everything into three sprues... not an easy task, particularly for a large tank like a Churchill!

Michael Bliss: Completely understood, many thanks for the clarification, looking forward to October.

Steve Blease: Not sure if you have plans already for an M3 Lee/Grant but please, please, please do an option for the British Lee used in Burma (they replaced the little mg cupola with a hatch). No one does this version and it bugs me! http://www.military-art.com/mall/more.php?ProdID=18015

Chris Long: Sherman V and Firefly.

Tim Young: What about the Mitilda MKI

Arven Rauth: Challenger. No one makes a Challenger

Rubicon Models: The Challenger was very late war 44-45, and only about 200 was actually produced. Not sure a plastic kit is worth the efforts (commercial viewpoint-wise).

Arven Rauth: Thing is I don’t think your sales are based on numbers of tanks that actually saw service but rather desirability. I know pretty much any gamer who does British Guards Armoured or Polish will want one and there are a few of those about.

Steve Blease: Sherman Firefly. I love the early stuff but the Firefly would make more commercial sense.

Rubicon Models: Good point taken! Thanks Steve!

Jamie Rafiki Tranter: Sherman V with optional Firefly parts.

Rubicon Models: May be... could be an add-on sprue to our existing range at a later stage!

Richard Thomson: Comet. Not a common model from what I can see.

Rubicon Models: Not a lot of Comet tanks reached the front line before the war ended in 1945...

Lim Jyue: Cromwell is probably good, though there’s only a couple of variation (Centaur and Normandy cowl really). You can stretch that (literally) into a Challenger I suppose... Crusaders are good, especially if you can work the various guns and the AA versions. 17 pdr guns and mine flails might be good as a starting point since you do have a Sherman version coming out. M4A4 was it? That’d be a Sherman V, which did have the Sherman Vc conversion.

Rubicon Models: Lim, good points! Notes taken!

Barnaby Jones: The Comet would be a nice start

Richard Clark: Cruiser tanks would be nice. I really like the Grant too (not strictly British I know but it would be a good kit with an option for the Lee turret).

David Maltman: I am for the early cruiser tanks A9, 10 and 13, may even be able to put them on a single sprue.

Moritz Schinke: Matilda.

Tomas Gaisare: Churchill would be my vote, if not then the crusader or lee. Would you at any point consider doing 1/48 scale?

PORTA: Only six prototypes of the Centurion entered the war in Feb 1945, and the war end in May... We might do one for the Korean War if we decided to do that era. As for the Crusader, the tank was produced between 1940 and 1943, but continued to be in service until 1945. Will be under our radar... Thanks!

The initial release of our first 6 kits and then the Tiger I is really taking its toll... doing 7 plastic kit projects in less than a year with minimal staff make us look like pandas, lol! We are taking a brief break while the factory is preparing the kits for commercial shipping. Meanwhile, we are following up on several open-ended projects, and hope to get them completed before our next two projects started.

I agree on the desirability aspect trumping whether or not the vehicle saw much service - I'd certainly be in for a Comet or two. Perhaps a late model Valentine (X or XI) - I guess it would partly depend on whether you could base a number of variants on the same kit. I also agree on the Challenger, but see how this would be trickier - with no other vehicles using the stretched Cromwell chassis it'd be a rather one purpose kit (a bit like a Churchill Black Prince).

The combo kit of the Churchill III / IV might be an good idea . True you would need 2 turrets , a square welded turret for the III and a cast turret for the IV version . But the body styles were the same . Gun options of 6 pounder , 95mm howitzer or the so called NA 75 ( the Sherman 75 mm gun in the welded IV turret ) , would give variety with few parts to exchange . Also if the IV turret and extra guns were on one sprue it could be replaced by an AVRE detail sprue for a D Day Churchill III " funny . " Another idea for a Churchill kit would be the mark VII ( round side escape hatches } which could include the Crocodile flame thrower gun and trailer .

Vote for the Comet and a Churchill set that covers the MkIV and MkVI in the same box (MkIII turret too for a stretch-goal ). Please include LOTS of spare track (and wheels for the Shermans) in any of your British armour kits though. They'll look under-dressed otherwise.

I'd love to see the armoured cars get some love too. A proper Dingo MkII, Humber Scout (required for the armoured units anyway), AEC MkIII, Humber LRC. That lot would begin to cover NWE for starters.

I agree that one or two British vehicles should be part of the range soon. I'm assuming that you'll want to stick to the more common vehicles to start with, and you're probably going to focus on mid to late war. That means a Sherman, Cromwell or Churchill. It's a bit obvious, but my vote would be for an M4A4 with options parts to build a Firefly.